Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/275

 finally published as a little book. I do not know that it convinced anybody who was not convinced already. I think we got along a little better after-*ward than we had before, and by the time my fourth term was done the phenomenon of the discussion, if not the vice, had disappeared. After my letter was sent to the committee, it was said that they would reply to it, but they never did, and instead invited the Reverend William A. Sunday to come to the city to conduct a revival. It was announced by some that he came to assault our position, but when he arrived Captain Anson, the old Chicago baseball player, under whom Mr. Sunday had played baseball in his younger days, happened to be giving his monologue at a variety theater that week, and he and Mr. Sunday together called on me. I do not know when I have had a pleasanter hour than that we spent talking about the old days in Chicago when Anson had been playing first base and I had been reporting the baseball games for the old Herald. That, to be sure, was after the days of Billy Sunday's services in right field, but it was not too late for me to have known and celebrated the prowess of that famous infield, Anson, Pfeffer, Williamson and Burns, and we could celebrate them again and speculate as to whether there were really giants in those days whose like was known on earth no more.

Mr. Sunday conducted his revival with the success that usually attends his efforts in that direction, but he did not mention me or the administration